MSUM
Anti-Racism Steering Team Meeting
November 3, 2002
Present: Warren Wiese, Abner Arauza, Donna
Rosh, Ron Jeppson, Ryan Sylvester, Judy Peterson, Amy Phillips,
Linda Palmer, Ben Blair, Tracy Clark, Veronica Michael, Yoke-Sim
Gunaratne, Steve Pletta, and Phyllis May-Machunda
Absent: David Crockett, Charane Wilson, Mary
Richardson, Peter Hartje, Aya Reid, and Adam Troy
·
Big Picture/Small World exercise.
·
Minutes approved with one correction, Linda Palmer
not Laura.
·
Review of President’s In-Service:
-
Good attendance, good conversation.
-
Commissioning went all right, still some confusion with the
purpose of this group.
-
Some (2) faculty felt it was an attack on white males.
-
People were responding, but not understanding all the
components.
-
Many negative comments before the event of having to
attend, none afterward.
-
Wellstone announcement was difficult to deal with and
remain focused.
-
Video was difficult to hear (quality of tape).
-
Good to raise awareness, get individuals talking, sharing.
-
Wasn’t very focused, curriculum session noted several
times.
-
Questions not addressed having to do with the other
minority groups; other “isms”.
-
Liked keynote (mostly) and would like to bring her back;
however some faculty expressed
they
didn’t get anything out of the speaker.
-
Concern that very few had seen the plan that Tess was
talking about. Would have been
better to have it available prior to the in-service.
·
Updates:
-
MSUSA wants to look at minority retention centers on
campus.
-
MSUSA president will come if requested.
-
CD Committee (Senate) met with Residence Hall director; it
was a good meeting on
issues.
-
CD Committee (University) dealt with increasing credit
hours to 6 in the “F” category.
Committee will forward recommendations to APAC. Liberal studies
committee also
recommended the same.
-
Additional Trainings: TOCAR Level 1 trainings in the
spring. 4 or 5 will be arranged.
Student Leaderships and Education faculty/methods instructors.
These would generally
be
1-day trainings that can accommodate about 45 people.
-
December 8 – hate crime response training workshop.
-
Suggesting having Task Force on Diversity document review.
·
Institution Assessment Survey feedback:
-
Survey appears really long, (doesn’t really take that
long to do).
-
Six responses per question seems like a lot but is part of
the methodology.
-
Size of the type should be increased (not final format).
-
Seemed complete, wide range of questions.
-
May need an initiative to fill it out. Suggested to do
something like a candy bar,
Bookstore coupon or money.
-
Example of University of Maryland at College Park was
positive: ticket in a drawing for
cash
prizes (one $100, two $50, five $20) or free movie passes.
-
If on-line, have an automatic number assigned to each one.
-
Hoping to get a certain percentage response from mailing to
all of the faculty and staff.
-
Do faculty, staff, and administration in January;
correspond with other campuses.
-
Suggestion to have it done in several parts.
-
Structure it so that if the response is N/A, a person can
move ahead to another question.
-
Consensus that is more important to provide incentives
rather than shorten. Bookstore is
doing
“Buy one item, get second at half off” – Amy will inquire if
they would like to do
the
same.
-
Important to provide definition of “People of color”.
-
Question about religious affiliation. Consensus it has
value to bring in.
-
Q. 29 page 5 – makes some assumptions that may need
clarification.
-
Q. 33 page 3 – difficult to interpret and can this be
done on the computer? Extra word
in
statement.
Continuing of Anti-Racist Visioning
Statements
·
Continuum that was offered at the training.
·
Institutional life represents full participation and
mutual power with diverse racial, cultural and
economic groups in determining its mission, structure, policies
and practices.
·
Need to gather history of institution, look where
power is, where/how decisions are made,
who
makes up the institution, who needs to be involved and what the
barriers are.
·
Need to deal with perception vs. reality of the
institution and bridge that gap.
·
Use the model in Wisconsin to bring all of our
pieces together – another area for Dr. Arenas
to
help with.
·
Need to use the Cultural Diversity plan when
approved.
·
Terry Shoptaugh’s institutional history was
distributed (Veronica’s questions).
·
Summary areas exist with pieces of information that
need to be brought together. Phyllis
May-Machunda
will have students begin to gather information.
·
White Earth history also needs to be included, as
does the Multicultural Affairs program.
·
History of positive action at MSUM needs to be told.
·
History of when the various minority student
organizations came in to being.
·
Some history of diversity in region numbers is
important to review.
·
People that might assist in history: Helen Klassen,
Erma Vizenor, Yvonne Condell, Roland
Dille,
Lois Selberg, Soc Glasrud (other retired faculty should be
reviewed) Gray Dragons
and
retired teachers – Del Corrick, John Neumaier, David Boleau,
Gerry Haukebo, DC
Cole.
·
Phyllis is working with a group to develop questions
to give these individuals –other
suggested questions should be emailed to Phyllis.
·
Suggestion to develop questions and have them taped
to create record.
Team Structure Reviewed
·
Almost 70 people have received training through
faculty – some are willing to help with unit
development.
·
Individual teams will need to begin work within
their units. Identify barriers; offer strategies
to remove these barriers and build into the university plan.
Cultural Diversity plan will
provide framework.
Next
meeting: Have an
open conversation about units, roles, differences from Cultural
Diversity Task Force. How
our work comes forward, mission, how this will come together. Not
have an agenda but focus on specifics of what each person’s role
is. Inform the campus of the differences between an anti-racist
institution and cultural diversity task force.
*
Each person should bring their binders from training and
review Section #3 “Applying the Analysis”.
The
next meeting is scheduled for November 25, 2002 10-12 in CMU 203.
Upcoming
meeting for calendars: December
12, 2002 10-12 meeting
cc: President
Barden
Cabinet
